Spammers, and Cyberbullies, and Trolls! Oh My!

While the internet gives us the most quality content we could ever ask for, there are pieces to the world wide web that are terrifying, especially for kids and teenagers. I talked about statistics on smartphone owning kids in the last blog and how most of their cell phone usage is spent watching TV and videos. Seems harmless, right? Sure. If you know what they’re being exposed to.

In 2015, the app YouTube Kids was created to help narrow down videos to children’s content only to eliminate the chance that children would stumble upon something they shouldn’t see. Unfortunately, the app seemed to never stop having content issues like these. Some creators would post videos with popular children’s television and movie characters that seemed happy and safe, but throughout the duration of the video these characters would commit inappropriate acts. Thus, exposing children to things I’m sure their parents weren’t prepared for. An article by Polygon discusses this and other issues the app has had since its creation.

YouTube Kids is an app for children starting at age 7, who are more likely being monitored by their parents anyway. But what about teens and preteens? What about these 11 year olds who own their own smartphones? I will discuss the negative content that these kids might be exposed to, but I think we should first start looking at how the overuse of smartphones affects their mental health.

When you research how smartphones affect mental health, you’ll find a lot of words like “depression” “anxiety” “suicidal” “addiction” just to name a few. In any other case, if these were the results you found when researching the effects of an object or substance, you would probably think to yourself, “just stop using it.” But smartphones and social media are highly addictive. Some believe just as addictive as cocaine. Scientifically, this could be true. According to Healthline, we experience the release of our brain chemical, dopamine, when something positive happens or we engage in social interaction. Because smartphones are highly used for social media and conversations, everytime we see the phone light up or recieve a like or comment on a post, dopamine is triggered. Feeling happy staying connected sounds like a good thing though, why do people think smartphone usage leads to depression?

The overuse of social media, the need for constant affirmation via likes, and the existence of cyberbullies are just three things that could promote depression and anxiety in teens. You all know about my lack of social media when I was a child and I’m probably lucky for it. I didn’t have to log in somewhere, post my thoughts or photos, and read negative feedback constantly like some kids do now. Excessive screen time also takes a person out of the real world and can make it difficult for them to feel true connections that are not online. This NPR article discusses the debate over whether smartphones are fully to blame for these negative responses in teens.

Just like with younger children, teens and preteens are also exposed to inappropriate content online. However, it is probably easier for this age group to get their hands on it. This article by The Guardian suggests that parents might be too distracted or too trusting of their kids to know that they are being exposed to negative content. Parents seem to be at a loss for what to do to manage their children’s exposure to things they wouldn’t want them to see. Taking away the phone doesn’t seem to ever fall under a reasonable solution, though. We can’t necessarily blame the parents for giving a child a phone, and we can’t blame the child for using it to its full capacity. So do we blame the phone?